Sought-after city puppies were sent to private rescue
Dogs transferred to nonprofit site founded by Animal Welfare exec
Four-month-old Hazelnut, a black Australian Cattle dog, was considered too small to adopt from the Albuquerque Animal Welfare Department last September. So Christopher Ater put an “interested person” hold on the puppy until she gained more weight and he could adopt her.
“I never received a call back from them,” Ater told the Journal on Friday, “so I assume the puppy was adopted.”
Now Ater said he’s “annoyed” to learn that, according to city records, Hazelnut was transferred to a private pet rescue, DMK Rehoming. The rescue was founded by the associate director of the Animal Welfare Department, Deb Brinkley.
Brinkley has been on paid city administrative leave since Jan. 29 and her actions have also been under scrutiny by the city of Albuquerque’s Office of Inspector General.
Animal Welfare records obtained by the
Journal show that more than one dozen young dogs at city shelters, mostly highly adoptable puppies, were transferred over a two-month period last fall to Brinkley’s rescue organization.
The nonprofit rescue is dedicated to saving “Death Row” dogs deemed dangerous or otherwise unadoptable but does sell puppies for $250 a piece, according to its website.
It isn’t clear whether the DMK Rehoming is operating in Colorado or in Belen, where Brinkley moved after taking the city job a year ago.
Brinkley didn’t return a Journal phone message seeking comment Friday. No one answered the Colorado phone number listed for DMK Rehoming on its website.
But in a Facebook post dated Wednesday, Brinkley wrote, “So the toxicity at my job has boiled over to this rescue. Please do not believe the story that is going around about me and about my rescue. I have put up with a year’s worth of vile harassment from several co-workers, trying to get me to quit.”
She was hired for the newly created position of associate director in late 2016 as city officials hoped to stabilize an agency that for several years has been roiled by controversy over the adoption of potentially dangerous dogs, low employee morale and top administrators overturning staff decisions on treatment and euthanasia.
Brinkley, who is paid $82,475 annually, has been the No. 2 person in the 140-employee department, working directly for then-Animal Welfare director Paul Caster. Both were active in volunteer animal rescue efforts prior to being hired by the city.
Caster, who was hired in 2015, left his job Nov. 30 just as incoming Mayor Tim Keller assumed office.
Brinkley’s attorney, Thomas Grover, told the Journal on Friday, “Everything she did was above board and consistent with city rules and procedures. It wasn’t like she was sneaking them out the back door.”
Brinkley got her classified job, which has due process protections, though she lacked the minimum college education requirements posted in the city’s job description.
Brinkley had been running DMK Rehoming and a dog kennel in Aurora, Colo., when she was chosen from among five applicants. The city substituted her work experience to meet the minimum educational requirement.
City records show that the transfers of young dogs, including the puppy Hazelnut, occurred between Sept. 21 to Oct. 23. All were listed as being transferred to DMK Rehoming with an address in Belen.
Hazelnut’s transfer came two weeks after Ater went to a city shelter hoping to adopt the pup as a friend for his 14-year-old dog, Lulu.
Along with Ater, records show, at least one other person expressed an interest in adopting one of puppies that later went to DMK Rehoming.
In late August, records show, shelter employees put a hold on a tricolor puppy named Monte for that man. He was described as an “interested party” and was to be contacted when the “pup makes weight,” records shows. Three weeks later, Monte was transferred to DMK Rehoming in Belen.
It wasn’t clear whether the puppies were transferred to Colorado, although Keller said last week that the city’s investigation into the matter shows city shelter dogs ended up in Colorado.
The puppy transfers came weeks before DMK Rehoming issued a series of fundraising pleas on its Facebook page, which also advertised adoption events in Colorado.
“We have puppies and adult dogs looking for their forever homes,” stated an Oct. 6 post.
A Nov. 28 post stated: “In 2016 we helped over 500 dogs find forever homes. Help us do the same for 2017.”
DMK Rehoming cited a Dec.31 deadline in urgently seeking funding. If received by then, the DMK page stated, the donations were to be matched by an anonymous donor up to $15,000.
An online fundraising site showed that DMK made its goal, collecting more than $16,000.
Whether the Animal Welfare puppies were sold by Brinkely isn’t clear. Asked to respond, Grover said, “My understanding is if she did any of that, she did it above board.”
No longer licensed
Its Facebook page states that DMK is a “Colorado licensed, nonprofit rescue.”
But, according to the Colorado Department of Agriculture, Brinkley submitted a “closed business” form on May 31, 2017. According to spokeswoman Christi Lightcap, DMK is no longer licensed by the state of Colorado and must re-apply for a new license if it reopens.
The nonprofit, which had been licensed by the state of Colorado for nine years, is under investigation by the Colorado agency, Lightcap told the Journal on Friday in an email.
DMK Rehoming’s website as of Friday showed four dogs up for adoption, apparently in Colorado. The Facebook page also shows numerous followers who offered support to Brinkley, some noting their successful adoptions of dogs from her agency in Colorado.
The nonprofit’s 990 income tax filing for 2016, the most recent available, showed about $75,864 in gross receipts for the year, with program services expenses of $73,903. It listed Brinkley as president and CEO, showing she and three directors as unpaid.
The Journal reported last year that Brinkley raised eyebrows among some animal welfare employees after acknowledging that she helped save a 120-pound mastiff mix breed dog named Onion, which made national news in 2012 after mauling a Nevada child to death.
Brinkley told Animal Welfare employees last year that she helped save Onion by taking him in at a sanctuary she used to run in Colorado, according to an internal city investigation.
Animal Welfare employees told investigators with the city’s Office of Inspector General last year that Brinkley’s past actions were alarming and epitomized how department’s leaders prioritize “live exits” for animals over public safety.
“This has been a very ugly year with a lot of lies and since that didn’t work they are coming after this rescue,” Brinkley said on the DMK Rehoming Facebook page last week. “The battle at my job just went from cat people versus dog people to Pro Euthanasia versus No Killing Healthy dogs and cats ... the pro euthanasia people unfortunately are winning.”
Experience vs. education
City officials last year conceded that Brinkley didn’t have the required minimum education for the job. The job posting for associate director in July 2016 stated that “related education may be substituted for experience on a year for year basis.”
Instead, the city substituted experience for her lack of education. That option that wasn’t mentioned in the public posting that was primarily circulated within city government.
Mary L. Scott, city Human Resources Director, responded to Journal inquiries last year stating in an email that it is “our standard practice to augment education for experience for this position.” She acknowledged that “no one in Animal Welfare or Human Resources caught the fact that the language regarding qualifying in the job description was inconsistent with qualifying language in other Associate Director positions.”
The job required a bachelor’s degree, with major course work in public administration, business administration, environmental science or a related field.
Brinkley’s application stated that she attended Colorado Mountain College but didn’t graduate. She completed 42 units toward an associate degree.
The city job description required at least eight years of managerial experience, including five years of direct supervisory experience in a management and/ or administrative capacity.
Brinkley’s application stated that she had “13 or more” years of managerial experience.
Under experience, she listed herself as owner of a dog kennel, dog day care and dog boarding facility.
She listed DMK Rehoming, but said it had no employees and that she supervised 60 volunteers.
From 2008 to 2012, her application stated, she was director and owner of an assisted living home for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Grover said his client proved to be the highest scoring applicant and the “most competitive.”
Brinkley scored the highest of the five candidates, two of whom work for the city’s Animal Welfare Department. Caster sat on the three-person selection committee.